Health club sold us £250 worth of day-passes without telling us their facilities would close

We spent some enjoyable days at a nearby health club, in the jacuzzi & relaxing on deck chairs overlooking the swimming pool. We decided to make a regular thing of it. We purchased around £250 of health club passes (about a year's worth) in early 2018 for a family member who is only in the area once a month. The expiry date on the passes was the end of 2018. The monthly rate was £80 so it made sense to buy the passes.

A few days later we went to the health club to use the first pass & discovered that the facilities (jacuzzi, relaxing deck chair area etc), were closed "due to renovation work". They remained closed for the rest of the year. We hadn't been told this at the point of buying the passes. :mad:

We complained about this fact and that we didn't want to use the club with renovations going on. They assured us we'd be able to use the facilities once they refurbishment was finished, so we waited.

Once the refurbishment finished, we discovered to our horror they closed some of the facilities permanently. Obviously we wouldn't have paid for the passes had we been told that. A few weeks later, the entire club "closed until further notice due to a fire"- so we still couldn't use our passes. :cool:

It is now over a year later, and we've moved house, 200 miles away from the club. Given that the facilities haven't been available since we bought the passes & still aren't available, we asked for a refund, but the club refused.

The reason we were given was "We have no paperwork to prove you bought the passes (apparently owning the physical passes isn't enough) and the member of staff who sold you the passes no longer works for us, so we can't ask her. The club has unfortunately experienced a fire and is closed for the forseeable future, until further notice. We can extend the expiry on your passes in case the club re-opens in the future, but we can't refund them. The fact that they're non-refundable is printed on the back of the passes."

The above explains the reasons they gave us over the course of many emails as to why they can't refund.

We now live several hundred miles away. We're at our wits end trying to reason with the new manager of the club. Having sent a number of emails back & forth, he just keeps repeating himself & we can't seem to get him to see sense. He has offered to extend the expiry date on our passes but that isn't much use since not only is it "permanently closed until further notice", we no longer live in the area. :cool:

We paid cash for the passes and feel quite let down & almost tricked into paying money for something they no longer offered. My experience of the law in the UK is that it is often on the side of the unreasonable & rarely is on your side when you have legitimate reasons that make sense. Is there anything at all we can do or is it another thing to just swallow?

Thanks in advance :T